


When The World Was Gray

by aSplashofColor (TiniBopper)



Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Multi, Platonic Relationships, Soulmate - Colors, and each of them brings another color into your world, and only one person ever brings the full rainbow, believe it or not though this is not a HaMai fic, bits and pieces of all routes, i can't believe i'm writing fic for a goddamn otome, in which there are people who you are destined to meet in your life, pbg route, romantic relationships, the more I write the more that HaMai appears, whatever it's fluffy as sin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-28 08:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7632472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiniBopper/pseuds/aSplashofColor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s said that only soulmates who have found pieces of their soul, their destined people, will ever see colors. The one-and-only type people, the true destined other halves, hold the clear vibrancy in a world gone gray, if they’re willing to acknowledge the bond.</p>
<p>Hana Mizuno is seeing more colors since she came to Asagao than she knows how to interpret. Is it really possible to have found her destined people… so easily?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>A reimagining and retelling of the PBG route because I’m weak for Soulmate and Childhood Friend AUs.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1 // Red

**Author's Note:**

> If you're a person who takes personal offense to lots of source-material quoting, then this is not the fic for you, because at least for the majority of the game's Chapter 1, most of the conversations are going to be almost entirely directly quoted, with some occasional extra flares. 
> 
> It's going to divert into a variation route with bits and pieces of all the other routes, though the main focus will, in fact, be the PBG route. For this fic's "Act 1" though, it's essentially a direct description.

Asagao Academy  
Higanbana, Japan   
3 April

* * *

 

#### Red

* * *

 Colors... were a concept.

They existed -- enough evidence existed that they did. They had names, and it was obvious that enough people had encountered the odd phenomenon that it couldn’t be waved away as a coincidence. But they weren’t commonplace enough to be more than just that -- a concept, something interesting to talk about, something to hope you saw in your lifetime.

Scientists had tried, several hundred times over, to explain the oddity. They cited the nervous system, an imbalance of hormones affecting the cones in the eyes and prompting their owner to see color when it was triggered. They talked about chemical imbalances, and how it seemed cooperatively achieved, and how it certainly couldn’t be healthy or the natural order of things.

Most religions spoke of a being with colors on their cloak as their deity. Old wives tales insisted that colors were little more than a flight of fancy. But the kindest story, the one that rang the truest, spoke of the last man who ever saw colors as a natural condition. It was said that he struck the color out of the world, after the death of his beloved. Some tales even claimed that the red bled out of his blood as he himself died.

In Higanbana, every year that the Flower Festival approached, the story would pop up in the whispers around the city. It was said that only the truest love could see colors, and the flower festival was the only occasion when an ancient love was made powerful enough to show everyone its splendor. The last man, the rumors said, was the very same man who fell in love with a flower-deity, whose story blessed the Festival each year.

The rumors were discredited by most other cities in Japan, of course, but it didn’t matter much in the end. All that really mattered was that at that moment, Higanbana was the destination of the train that was flying across the countryside, and while the pamphlet that she had been given when she boarded was interesting to read at first, it was very little in terms of continued entertainment.

Hana Mizuno had ducked into the first mostly empty compartment on the train that she could find, quietly apologizing to the boy who was already sitting there, though he hadn’t even looked up from his newspaper when she did. She had busied herself for the past hour or so scanning through the pamphlet that she’d snagged; reading and rereading the acceptance letter in her bag; counting the number of buttons on the ridiculously lush seating -- one, two, three… twenty-one, twenty-two... -- over and over again; occasionally glancing out the window at the blur of grays and faded light. Once upon a time, she thought, she might have seen immense blue skies, and vibrant green fields, and maybe the clear, crystal blue shimmering of the Sea of Japan.

But, while she was like most people in knowing, conceptually, what colors looked like, she was quite unlike them in another sort of knowledge -- how _beautiful_ and _impossible_ they made one feel. Her world had seemingly always been dull and gray, and yet she knew, inexplicably, that her hair was pink, that the sky was blue, that grass was green and that her ratty old stuffed rabbit, Mr. Bunny, was a faded purple -- and more than that, she could almost visualize the shades, cast out over the grays and gloomy shadows that surrounded her world, but couldn’t ever reasonably call up a time that she could really remember _seeing_ them.

It would have been disconcerting, if she focused on it, but she had long since moved on from it. She glanced up at the boy across from her once again as the train jerked and started to slow, taking note that the jacket he wore didn’t look quite the same as the uniform jackets she had seen the other students wearing. It was a paler shade of gray, with darker black sleeves and looked almost like a varsity jacket. There was a small patch sewn on the left breast, though she couldn’t quite make out the design on it.

She took brief note of the fact that his tie was partially undone, hanging loose around his neck in a casually unkempt way. And if her eyes weren’t deceiving her, he almost looked like… was he _sparkling?_

“So you’re a first-year, then?” he asked, barely managing a half-interested tone. He folded his newspaper neatly, and set it in his lap as he peered across the compartment at her, seeming distracted at best. She briefly worried that he might have just caught her staring.

“Me…?” she bit her lip, blinking, wide eyed.

He spared a quick glance around the compartment, arching one immaculately shaped eyebrow, as though to question who else he might be speaking to. A brief chuckle bubbled out of his throat. She cleared her throat, a nervous smile forming.

“Oh… no, I’m not a first-year. I’m a third-year.” As she finished the statement, the train jerked again, slowing even further, and she had to take a deep breath to settle her already nervous stomach. The butterflies of the upcoming school year were not helping her case in any possible way.

_I can **not** start the school year by throwing up on a fellow student, before even reaching the Academy! _

“That’s not possible,” he spoke, a frown forming, “I’ve never seen you before.”

“I-- uh. It’s…” it took a brief moment of mouth-fishing before the words would form, “because I’m a transfer student?”

He laughed again, “A transfer student, huh? We don’t get many of those.”

She tugged out the acceptance letter again, from the spot where she had last tucked it away in her blazer pocket, and sheepishly held it out toward him. He snagged it from her hand with thin, almost artistically delicate fingers, and scanned it briefly before offering a small smirk as he held it back out to her.

“Well then, Hana, I suppose I’ll be seeing you around.”

The train finally came to a full stop, and before she could fully register what had happened, he had picked up the suitcase sitting next to him and left her alone in the compartment. It took her a moment to realize that he had gleaned her name from the acceptance letter…

...but she had never gotten the chance to find out his.

* * *

The swarming press of bodies would have felt uncomfortable, but bearable, to potentially anyone else, but Hana kept her head ducked close to her chest and felt a quiet, bubbling sort of terror. She knew how much damage an errant elbow could really do in a crowd this closely-pressed, especially if it landed at just the right height to crack her glasses. Still, the unfortunate truth was that the crowd most likely knew the correct way to go -- a way that she wasn’t, herself, prepared to find yet.

She watched various students break free of the crowd, drifting off to find friends and clump together in small groups, and felt a small sense of relief as the crowd thinned enough that she felt she could breathe again. Off in the distance, she could see an old man calling for first-years to gather around him, but she… was not a first year.

Hana followed the last few straggling students instead, to a large house looming overhead with a girl hovering at the front staircase, peering into the crowd as though searching for someone -- and then, her eyes landed on Hana -- and for whatever reason, they _stayed_ there.

She beamed, as though having solved some sort of mystery of the universe, and Hana blinked in surprise as she bounced her way off the steps, hopping down over the stone railing on nimble feet and easily elbowing her way through the rest of the crowd to get to the quieter girl. But what was most surprising to Hana in that moment was the instinctive, inherent knowledge that _this girl is a redhead._

And as she neared, the knowledge became true. Before her eyes, she could see shades of red bleeding into the world, could see the way that light played on the pretty cinnamon-auburn hair of the girl in front of her. Her smile filled her face and reddened her cheeks (she had very slightly protruding front teeth, giving her an adorable, almost chipmunk sort of look).

“You _must_ be my roommate!” she chirped, as soon as she came to a stop in front of Hana, bouncing a bit on the balls of her feet as though she couldn’t stand to stay still for too long.

“Me?” Hana stammered, a bit taken aback by both the vehemence of the girl in front of her -- the absolute _surety_ radiating off of her -- and the irrefutable knowledge that the reds _weren’t going away_. It wasn’t the echoey flashes of color that her mind sometimes placed over the drab gray world around her, it was wild and vibrant and _everywhere at once._

And, looking at the other girl’s eyes, the absolute _joy_ she saw there told her more wonders than she could ever doubt. The other girl was seeing colors too.

“Of course you, silly!” she smirked, putting a fist to her hip and standing in a cheerfully confident pose. “Even if you aren’t, I’m petitioning that you swap with whoever is. Let me guess, though, Room 325?”

Hana blinked. The number… _was_ the one in the letter that marked her dorm arrangements, now that she thought about it. “Um… yeah, actually, that’s right.”

The girl in front of her let out a gleeful laugh, pumping her fist as though in victory. “Hell yes! When they told me my roommate was going to be a transfer student I just _knew_ you were going to be a total main character.”

“I’m-- sorry? A what?”

“I just _knew_ it had to be you!” She continued, as though she hadn’t heard Hana’s timid, dumbfounded question. Maybe she hadn’t. Hana knew she was soft-spoken at best. “I mean, your _hair!_ ”

A rock settled in the pit of Hana’s gut. It didn’t take a single look around her to immediately know that everyone else was likely brown- or black- or blond- or red-haired, leaving her entirely alone with her pink hair. She hadn’t been on campus for more than five minutes, and she was already being mocked -- she _had to be._ “Is… is there something wrong… with my hair?” Her voice trembled, and she felt humiliation tears prickling at her eyes.

The girl’s face immediately slackened from its delighted smile to a blatantly worried expression, her eyebrows knitting together and a surge of nervous guilt flickering there for a second before her face cleared again, and she offered a rueful smile.

“No--no!” she held up her hands, beaming once more, entirely earnest, “It’s great, it’s _so pretty_. I’m sorry. Oh god, that probably sounded a lot worse than I meant for it to.” She thrust a hand out toward Hana, the other returning to its seemingly comfortable perch on her hip, “We’re getting off on the wrong foot, aren’t we? I’m Mai Sasaki. _You_ must be Hana.”

Hana did her best to ignore the nervous butterflies in her stomach, at another person knowing her before she introduced herself, but at least this one had the courtesy to introduce herself back. “It’s… very nice to meet you, Mai.” she offered, carefully clasping Mai’s hand in return, knowing without a doubt that her cheeks were probably as pink as her hair. It couldn’t really be helped -- she was… a bit overwhelmed, honestly.

“All your schoolbooks are waiting in our room with your welcome letter,” Mai explained, “And I read the envelope. I… hope you’re not mad.” her face fell again, briefly, before she started tugging Hana gently through the crowd toward the steps to the building again. Looking up, Hana could now see that even the brick was a faded red color, and the glass of the windows looked like they were reflecting the sky above like mirrors.

“Did you check in at the front desk already?” Mai asked over her shoulder, without slowing, a small fond grin on her face.

Hana grimaced. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

“Good.” Mai’s absolutely radiant grin was back, smug and delighted all at once, “They’ll offer to have a staff member give you a tour of the campus, but I can _totally_ show you around. We don’t get a lot of transfer students in year three, you know!” she glanced over her shoulder, taking note of the single bag clutched in Hana’s free hand like a life saver. “Oh, is that your only bag?”

Hana, floundering a bit, looked up at her soulfully, rather like a puppy that wasn’t sure why it was getting so much attention.

“Just the one?” Mai prodded gently, an odd twist to her lips, “I’m glad I brought an extra bag of stuff to decorate our room with. I started already, I hope you don’t mind. But I did wait to string the lights! I thought we could do it together, you know?”

_This girl,_ Hana thought wearily as she battled down a nervous but amused chuckle, _does **not** speak with punctuation. I don’t know if she does **anything** with punctuation._

“Yeah, okay,” she giggled, Mai’s infectious cheer nonetheless managing to chase away some of her nerves, “That sounds good.”

The taller girl beamed again, opening the door and all but bouncing the more petite girl into the building with her, up two flights of stairs to the third floor. The chaotic rising babble of girls all around them nearly drowned out Mai’s continued speech --

“You’re not missing anything with the campus tour, I promise! Mr. Saitomo does them every year and he’s, like, totally dull. He just drags you around the entire campus and talks in that weird, squeaky voice of his. I’ll tell you _everything_ you need to know.”

“Thanks.” Hana smiled, having to walk roughly two steps for each one of Mai’s almost dancing, leaping ones. Before long, they had stopped in front of a thin white door, breaking the pale pink expanse of the walls, with a pale _325_ next to it. Hana briefly wondered what color it would turn out to be, if any.

“Here we are!” Mai chirped, tugging out her key in the same movement as the two of them came to a stop in front of the door. Within seconds she had it open, sweeping into the room like a queen returning to her castle, gesturing widely to everything as Hana herself stepped in and placed her bag on the ground.

The walls, much like the hallway outside, were a soft powdery pink shade, though they were already covered in various places by posters, magazine cutouts, and photographs. The scent of potpourri filled the air with a pleasantly crisp smell, one which managed, more than anything else, to soothe Hana’s nervous stomach. There was a bunk bed, two writing desks with wooden chairs, a small dresser (Hana noted that the top two drawers were already slightly open, and an errant pair of lacy red underwear was hanging out of the one. If she were any less flustered, the sight might have been enough to send her cheeks to match its shade, but as it was, she could only really feel amused.) and a mirrored vanity, all done in what looked like it was probably white wood, all clearly provided by the school.

The top bunk was already swimming with neatly tucked blankets and pillows, the varying shades of gray assuring Hana that they were probably wildly clashing colors. The bottom bunk, in comparison, looked like the sort of thing one would actually _find_ in a dormitory, with one stiff looking pillow and a thin blanket that Hana didn’t need to touch to know was going to be _horribly_ itchy. The brief grimace that passed her face was not missed by Mai, but the other girl played it off as though she had landed on the thought herself.

“Oh man, I brought _way_ too many pillows and blankets. I _always_ over-pack!” In the midst of chattering cheerfully about her trip to Italy over the break, she tugged off two of the fluffier looking blankets and tossed four of the plumpest looking throw pillows down onto the bottom bunk. Hana barely had the chance to feel a twinge of mortified guilt before the redhead was beaming in accomplishment, having rearranged the bottom bunk into something that looked as luxuriously comfortable as the top. “There, that’s much better!”

Hana offered a hesitant smile, “...thanks, Mai.” She kept her gaze down, bringing her bag over to the renovated bottom bunk and starting to unpack, while Mai opened the curtains and let the sunlight stream in across the floor.

“So…” Mai beamed, plopping down in the chair in front of one of the desks -- Hana had to presume it was the one she had claimed. “Where are you from?”

“About two hours north of here,” Hana offered back, sliding her suitcase underneath the bottom bunk beside the -- heh -- bedazzled duffel bag that simply had to be Mai’s. It wasn’t red -- surprisingly. She wondered what its color would turn out to be. “It’s a small town called Amiririsu - you probably haven’t heard of it.”

She set the faded Mr. Bunny next to a similarly shaded looking throw pillow.

“Oh… did you go to a different boarding school, or…?”

“No,” Hana laughed a bit at the dumbfounded look on the other girl’s face. “I went to a public school down the street from my house.”

“ _Public_ school?!” Mai’s face broke out into a delighted grin again. “What was that like? Were the students mean? Did you have a lot of friends?” she was practically bouncing in her seat again, honest enthusiasm written on her face, truly seeking answers to her questions. “I’ve always been to private schools -- my parents work a lot, and my dad goes overseas _all the time_ so I think they stuck me _here_ for convenience -- oh hey, what’s that?”

She dropped off of her babble, leaning forward as Hana delicately lifted an ornately patterned origami crane from its protective black box, setting it on the unclaimed writing desk and angling it to catch the light from the window.

“Oh, this?” she peered at it, a fond smile on her face -- it was… indescribably _nice_ to be able to see the pretty floral pattern again, even if she could only really make out the soft shades of pink and off-copper. “My mother made it for me, a long time ago.”

“It’s so _pretty_ …” Mai breathed, her cheeks flushed with delight. “I’ve never seen paper like that before. It shimmers, kinda like -- oh, yeah! The lights! Let me get them.”

She swept out of her chair again, pulling open the drawer in her writing desk in the same movement, and held up a tangle of wires and fairy lights. “I thought these would look nice! Here, help me string them up!”

Her infectious cheer pulled a genuine laugh out of Hana again, and the smaller girl found herself joining in the endeavor to pin the lights up around the perimeter of the room. Once it was all done, they both settled into their respective chairs at their writing desks, beaming at one another.

“So, how was the train ride? Did you meet anyone?” Mai tilted her head.

“Oh, uh…” Not really. “Sort of? I was just in a compartment with this boy, I--”

“A _boy,_ huh?” Mai’s face broke into a suggestive grin, “Was he _cute?_ ”

“I, uh… yeah, I guess? I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention… I didn’t even get his name.” Hana let out a nervous breath of air, “And… it’s not like he, er, was as interesting to look at as you.”

Mai’s entire face went a bright, delighted crimson. “Interesting, hm~? What’s _interesting_ about looking at me~?”

Hana’s own face broke into a small, sly smile, “Well, for one, your face can go as red as your hair.” She said it as nonchalantly as she possibly could. Mai’s shriek of pure delight still broke the sound barrier.

“I _ **knew** it!_ ”

Before Hana could react, the larger girl was upon her, her arms wrapped around Hana’s more slight frame and lifting her up off the ground, spinning her around like she weighed nothing. “ _I knew it I knew it I **knew it!**_ ” She chanted. “You and me, Hana! We were _destined_ to be in each other’s lives!”

“I--” Hana let out a breathless wheeze of a laugh. Mai’s joy, much like the rest of her boundless enthusiasm, was limitless and infectious in the best possible way. “ _What?_ ”

“Soulmates!” Mai crowed right next to her ear, “Just like the legends! Colors mean it! You’re meant to be a part of my life, and I’m meant to be a part of yours!” She let out another breathless squeak, “We’re basically _required_ to be best friends!”

She grabbed hold of Hana’s hands, practically glowing with her own radiant inner light. Hana, though she was equally as breathless, managed a confused giggle and tilted her head.

“But I thought… aren’t soulmates supposed to be, I dunno… romantic?”

“Heck no, dummy.” Mai laughed, stumbling backwards into her chair again, still beaming. “You can have someone who’s meant to be a part of your life that you don’t want to kiss.”

_You’re making it very hard not to want to kiss you._ Hana let out another, squeaky giggle, putting her hand to her face to hide a bit of her blush, not entirely sure whether it was all from exertion.

“Unless you _want_ to kiss,” Mai’s expression turned devious again, as though she had read Hana’s mind. “I mean, I’ve been pretty much soul-taken by someone else for a while, but _you_ are cute enough to warrant some smooching if you want. Especially if you go as pink as your hair every time.”

“ ** _Mai!_** ” Hana squealed, hiding her face in her hands but unable to hide the joyful tone that seemed to creep naturally into her voice. Mai’s laughter joined her own again, and it was a couple of minutes before they both calmed down and caught their breath, flushed with cheer and the pure happiness of knowing without a shadow of a doubt that _this was one of their people._

After a few more moments of contented silence, both of them breathing slow and digesting the large concept that lay before them, Mai finally spoke again. “You’ll have to point him out to me, if you see him again. The boy from the train, I mean. He might not have left you any colors, but that’s no reason not to see if he’s cute. Heck, maybe you’ll start seeing colors around him if you hang around long enough.”

“Fair enough.” Hana gave a soft, happy smile.

“Anyway! It’s lunch time, we should probably go get something to eat before all the best food is gone. There’s this ramen place down the street from campus that’s like, _out of this world,_ but the school only lets us leave campus on weekends.” Mai hopped out of her chair again, twisting around as she did to go peer out the window even as she continued talking, “We could go today because it’s Sunday, and it’s pretty nice out, but you might want to go to the caf’ since you just got here? Sunday is like, _always_ grilled cheese day, and the lunch ladies make the absolute best grilled cheese in the world -- like, I swear, even people unlucky enough to not have met any of their destined people would be able to see colors with--”

All at once, her words were cut off by a strangled wheeze of laughter, her eyes glimmering as she leaned further toward the window. “Oh my _gosh_ , Mimi Santos totally just tripped outside and fell on her _face!_ I saw it!” Hana gave an incredulous sort of snort, and barely got to see the brief flash of concern on Mai’s face. “Oh, is that mean to laugh? Maybe I shouldn’t have…” And it was gone. “Oh well. Anyways, let’s go eat! I’m totally starved.”

Without waiting for an answer, Mai snagged hold of Hana's hand again, all but dragging her out of the room once more.


	2. Act 1 // Purple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as nice as having these starting chapters be in rainbow order all culminating in a literal full rainbow when Hana meets PBG would be, it just does not match up between how Hana meets the boys and the colors I've assigned them, and in any case, she 'meets' PBG a lot earlier than the last. So, alas, no easy 'red orange yellow' etc.
> 
> Image used is from the game's CG gallery itself, and is (C) Illus Seed. I just fiddled around with filters for the appropriate effect to reflect this story(and the particular scene involved)'s intended idea. All source material is, as it always has been and always will be, nnnnot mine! And I have absolutely no intent of ever making use of them for profit! I just want to offer a new sort of perspective over the initial events in the game. ;)

* * *

**Purple**

* * *

 

Somewhere between having an arm tucked through the bend of her own (Mai, it seemed, was a very comfortably tactile person) and finding herself dragged through the crowd once again to the cafeteria, Hana realized that the last of her nervous jitters, strangely enough… had vanished. She was smiling so hard that her cheeks ached a bit, having to keep up with Mai’s boundless energy as she was dragged to the cafeteria building, and then through the line, and then to one of the tables in the back of the room.

Mai had started chattering somewhere along the line about her trip to Italy and Spain again, going into nearly minute-by-minute detail about her summer romance that never got past a few salty kisses. Hana smiled and sat back, watching Mai more than anything else, quietly soaking in the way the light played off of the other girl’s auburn hair, and the dark reddish brown freckles that dusted her cheeks.

She had a high, songbird voice. Her expressions were dynamic, almost always changing as she spoke. She laughed often, and smiled more, and spoke with her hands. She imitated people in wildly unflattering voices, seemingly unrelated to her actual opinion of them.

Just as Mai was finishing off an account of a particularly ‘scandalous’ encounter with her best friend’s older brother in a changing room, a flash of something caught Hana’s peripherals -- something seemingly sparkly, in the midst of a world of grays and, now, faded reds and pinks.

“Hey--” she cut in, eyes widening, “That’s him!”

“Huh?” Mai blinked, eyes wide, “Who?”

Hana leaned in to whisper, gesturing subtly with one hand, toward the boy with the perfectly coiffed wave in his hair who _still_ seemed to be sparkling. “The boy from the train. You told me to point him out. That’s him.”

Mai’s entire face brightened in recognition, the glimmer that Hana had recognized as a world of colors playing across the other girl’s eyes. “Oh my gosh, _Jared_? You met him on the train?”

Hana beamed, “So _he’s_ my competition then.” she teased.

“ _Hana._ ” Mai giggled, smacking her arm.

“Don’t even pretend!” Hana let out a soft laugh, “I can _tell_ .” She noted the other girls trailing off their conversations, but her attention was on Mai -- even as Mai’s gaze slid up over her shoulder. It wasn’t until the other girl’s face had gone such a smooth, continuous shade of red that a majority of the blood had to have surged to her face that Hana finally looked up, realizing that the boy -- that _Jared_ had come to a stop behind her.

“Oh,” he blinked, a small grin playing at his lips. “Hana. I met you on the train, how are things settling down for you?”

And strangely enough, as Hana peered up over her shoulder at him, aware of Mai’s quietly rapturous expression, she felt a small thrill of glee. The walls, beyond him… they _couldn’t possibly_ …

And yet, they were. A pale, faded lavender color was bleeding into the gray.

Jared was her _purple_.

She beamed, “Really well!” she reached over to grab hold of Mai’s arm, causing the other girl to give a slight squeak and casting Jared’s eyes over to her briefly. The short start of surprise forming on his face was more than enough proof she needed to know that he was Mai’s ‘destined’, but before it could solidify, he was looking back at her again and his expression was controlled once more. She pressed on anyway. “I found my roommate, and she’s been really helping me out.”

“Well if you ever need help,” he offered, his mouth still curled into that small, almost fond sort of smile, “I’ll be around. Third year, right?”

Hana nodded, not quite able to stop smiling.

“Some of my friends are in that year. Of course, they can’t compare to _me,_ but I’ll give them the heads up to look out for you.” He flashed a dazzling smile (Hana noted that the sparkling very much extended to his seemingly perfectly straight teeth) and winked at her. “It’s the least I can do for such a cute girl.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from… pretty much everywhere. Mai was unnaturally still underneath Hana’s hand -- Hana wasn’t even sure if she was breathing or not.

“Well, I’ll see you around.” Jared lifted one hand in what looked like an aborted wave, balancing his lunch tray with the other as he turned to head off toward the other side of the lunch room. Mai finally jerked underneath Hana’s hand, practically gasping as if the air had finally returned to the room.

“Th-That’s Jared.” her voice was breathy as her eyes finally swung around to Hana again, “He’s the _most beautiful guy in school._ ”

Hana put her chin in her hand, smiling knowingly at her new best friend. “The walls are purple.”

There was another soft, aborted squeak from everyone at the table around her. Mai’s face was joyous and still an indecent shade of pink, but Hana knew in an instinctive way that she (and potentially Jared) were going to be the only ones able to see it. Mai’s hand clasped around hers, a quick, absolutely desperate squeeze that Hana very quickly translated as ‘don’t say anything about me; everyone’s listening’.

And indeed, as Hana cast a quick look around the table, she could make out more than a few jealous looks from the girls around her. She quickly changed the subject.

“Why are they wearing those jackets?” she asked instead, dropping back to a subject that had been bothering her for a while. “I thought male students were supposed to wear blazers instead.”

“Oh, no,” Mai beamed, clearly pleased that Hana had caught her meaning. “They’re allowed, they’re--”

“I bet you don’t actually see anything.”

The girl who was sitting a bit beside Mai had leaned forward, peering at Hana with a smug, distrustful sort of smile. “Everyone knows that the walls are supposedly purple. Just saying that doesn’t mean you _see_ it.”

“Oh, go suck on an egg, Mimi.” Mai very pointedly shoved Mimi’s shoulder, nearly knocking her over. “ _Maybe_ she was just agreeing with me that he’s the most beautiful boy in school. You know, stating another entirely known fact?” The other girl scowled faintly and turned around to look at her other friends again, and Mai dropped her voice as she leaned over toward Hana again.

“Don’t take it personally.” she muttered furiously, “Mimi’s never seen a color in her _life_ and I guarantee you she’s just jealous.” She squeezed Hana’s hand again, “ _Especially_ since she can’t possibly see your adorable pink cheeks right now, holy shit.”

“Maiiii.” Hana whined softly. “You’re _really_ not making it easy not to want this whole thing to be romantic.” she gestured gently between the two of them, feeling the glow in her cheeks intensify.

“That’s the _point_ ,” Mai’s grin was devious and should have been illegal. “Trust me, Hana, I’ve given more than my fair share of girls a bad case of the bi. And if I wasn’t soul-taken, I’d probably snag you off the market before anyone else got the chance.” she snickered, “Besides, if you act like this with _everyone_ who leaves you seeing colors, then you’re going to be a hopeless mess by the time you meet your _true_ soulmate.”

Hana sighed, putting her chin in her hand, grimacing, “Do you blame me? This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to know that the colors thing was actually a… a _big deal_.”

Mai peered at her, as though trying to decipher what she could possibly mean by that, before shaking her head, “Well, anyway. You asked me about those guys and their jackets, right? Those are their Normal Boots Club jackets.”

“Their… what?” Hana tilted her head a bit. “What’s ‘Normal Boots Club’?”

She glanced over her shoulder at the busy table at which Jared had settled again, where all of the boys seemed to be in the middle of a wild conversation. Even just looking at them all made Hana feel like she could see an echo of color over everything. The faded purple was leaving the walls again, having gone with Jared’s proximity, but Hana did her best not to let the disappointment show on her face.

“It’s a club we have at school here,” Mai spoke, not worrying about Hana’s seeming inattentiveness. “It’s like, totally exclusive and full of only the _coolest_ students. They get together and play video games.” She leaned over to point over Hana’s shoulder, making the pink haired girl follow the line of her arm. “That one right there is Jon, also known as ‘JonTron’. His bird’s name is Jacques. He’s one of the founders of the club, as well as the head of the drama club here at school. Next to him, the one playing the Gintendo 4DS with the adorable goatee? That’s PBG. He’s the other founder of the Normal Boots Club and one of the best soccer players at our school.” she snickered, “Though Jeff, one of his teammates, would _probably_ beg to differ.”

Her hand moved, and Hana’s eyes followed it. “Next to him -- going around the table, clockwise, y’know. Well, that’s _Jared_ , otherwise known as ProJared. He,” she sounded perfectly smug, “Is a _model._ ”

“Is… the sparkling thing… normal?” Hana managed to ask, arching an eyebrow toward Mai.

“Of course. He’s too beautiful _not_ to sparkle with the sinful thoughts of all ladies pointed toward him.”

Hana would probably have been worried about the casual way that Mai said that, but she noticed the fact that Mai's face was red again, giving her a chance to guess that at least some of those ‘sinful thoughts’ were coming from the redhead herself.

“The one next to him,” Mai continued as though they hadn’t just diverted into a tacit observation that a large majority of the school’s female population very likely sexually fantasized about Mai’s soulmate, “is Satchbag, but everyone calls him Satch. He’s like, _crazy_ smart, and offers tutoring on the weekends. He works as a librarian’s assistant, so you can usually find him there. Next to him is Shane, he’s kind of standoffish, but he’s got a cute face and he knows like… every conceivable bit of trivia for most video games. He transferred in last year from England and his Japanese is still sometimes kind of unsteady. He’s talking to Jirard, who practically everybody calls the Completionist. Jirard’s got the highest GPA in his year, because he never gets anything less than a hundred percent, and he’s got the biggest Itty Bitty Kitty collection I’ve ever seen.”

“Itty Bitty Kitty?”

“It’s a kid’s show with a lot of different characters so there’s a bunch of opportunity for merch.” Mai shrugged, “I don’t get the appeal, but supposedly Jirard’s collection is like… almost entirely complete. He’s missing maybe one or two figurines.”

She gestured to the last three boys at the table, who were in the middle of a particularly wild looking conversation-- there were hands nearly smacking into faces with every other gleeful sentence spoken. “Those three are Josh -- the one next to Jirard -- Nick -- next to him -- and Paul, the one standing. They write a column in the school newspaper called ‘Continue?’, and yes, it is with a question mark. Paul was the student council prez last year, and he’s running again this year, I think.” She put her chin in her hands, giving out a soft sigh of mixed longing and admiration.

“So…” Hana bit at her lip, feeling an inexplicable sort of tug toward the easy, chaotic camaraderie that surrounded the table. “How would someone, you know… go about… joining the Normal Boots Club?”

“You don’t choose the Boots, Hana, the Boots choose you.” Mai hummed softly, poking at her food with her fork, “And it’s pretty… well, rare. Most of them share colors with each other. Shane only got in last year, from what I heard, because Jon saw purple for the first time when they met. Plus, even if they like you, you’re not part of the club unless they present you with The Boots.”

“What are... ‘ _The Boots’_?” Hana was fairly sure that Mai had to be messing with her at this point.

“Did you notice how their jackets have those patches?” Mai asked. “A pair of boots. They’re the ‘Normal Boots’ club. It’s some kind of video game reference -- apparently in really old RPGs, some of your starting items are just called ‘normal’ and then the item descriptor. But anyway, they apparently have this little statuette of those boots, too, and they do this weird initiation ritual with it.”

 _Ritual_? Hana was sure her surprise had to have shone on her face, as Mai continued without having to be prompted.

“I hear they fill a room with candles, and wear these totally creepy robes during initiation. This year-two girl said she saw it once and they were all like, chanting around The Boots and it sounded like they were talking backwards. But I don’t believe her. And even if it’s true, who cares if they’re a cult? They’re a really hot cult.”

“Do they… have a lot of friends?” Hana asked, a bit dumbfounded at how cavalier Mai was being.

“Depends on your definition of friends, I guess? I mean, everyone in the school looks up to them. They could probably get with any girl they wanted… or any boy, for that matter. But they definitely are all friends amongst themselves, more or less.” She shrugged, before her eyes cast down toward Hana’s half-untouched food. “Hey, are you gonna eat your cake?”

With a soft sigh and a smile, Hana pushed the plate over to her, putting her chin in her hand and doing her best to listen to Mai’s continued chatter about Jared, through mouthfuls of sugary frosting.

* * *

 

Across the lunchroom, an oasis of quiet thought was centered in the midst of a proverbial warzone.

Jon’s soft growls of annoyance were mirrored by PBG’s own irritation, to his right, as the two of them leaned down over the Gintendo in the latter’s hands. PBG was pressing buttons as fast as his fingers could land on them, his gaze entirely focused on the screen in front of him, as his character on the screen dodged their way through a bullet-hell worthy of the original ‘Danmaku’ game. Every time he nearly got hit, Jon would let out a soft swear, and Peebs would bounce a little in his seat as though he himself had nearly been grazed by a fireball... of _doom_.

Across the table from him, Paul and his boys were placing bets amongst themselves for how long Peebs would last -- both general time bets, and level bets. Peebs, as it was, was on level six. The least generous of the bets that he had overheard was that the tall soccer boy would die _immediately_ upon reaching level seven. Peebs had snarled out an expletive toward the three of them with no heat, without looking up, his mouth curled into a determined grin and the tip of his tongue poking through his teeth, his eyebrows furrowed.

To his left, Satch, Jirard, and Shane were all embroiled in a furious debate over the merits of hiked up difficulty curves, each of them offering their own opinion on the matter and none of them able to agree on anything except for the one, unanimous acceptance that difficulty curving was one of the most complicated and frustrating parts of creating and playing games -- and that the process of modding games to balance out the difficulty curve was _just as much_ of a pain in the ass. Jirard was wildly gesticulating, clearly fired up by whatever point he was trying to make (something about higher difficulty curves prompting speedrunners to find workarounds and being the most effective tool for finding bugs in the game’s coding) and Satch was laughing and refusing to believe anything but the difficulty being meant to be a _deterrent_ for cheaters, not _encouragement_ , while Shane sat back and shook his head with an amused smirk, watching the two of them bicker like an old couple.

And in the midst of all of them, he idly played his part as the vain pretty-boy, peering into a mirror as though he didn't have a care in the world. It let the rest of them gloss over him, and let him keep his thoughts to himself.

Jared didn’t bother to hide the way his eyes were idly drifting over toward PBG’s faded aquamarine Gintendo, again and again. Or how they drifted to meet their similarly shaded reflections in the mirror. He could almost see the clear flare of color that they had to be, now, a shade he had never been fully certain of. He’d been able to see blues since he met Jirard the first time, and had seen greens the day he met with Jon and PBG (he found out later that the green came from Peebs). Yet, until that day, he had never been able to see with any clarity the particular shade of aquamarine right in between the two colors that caught the fluorescent lighting every time Peebs twitched and jerked his hands to the side.

Until he looked up on the train and met her eyes. Her eyes, which matched his -- a chilling, glimmering aqua, as clear as a precious stone; a shade which had flared with absolute vibrancy, managing to leave absolutely no question in his mind that the girl was breathtaking.

It had taken every amount of self control he had not to jerk in surprise, at that first meeting. To keep a distanced, calm demeanor. Just because she was a Color to him didn’t mean he could just throw himself at her and keep her around forever, even if that particular shade of blue-green was entrancing. With so many expectations on his shoulders, so many eyes directed at him, he couldn’t afford to reveal who held his colors until they could be reasonably trusted to handle themselves.

Peebs and Jirard sometimes glanced at him with knowing smiles -- it was impossible for them not to know they were two of his colors, since as best as he could tell it was a mutual experience -- but they kept their mouths shut. They had enough sense in their heads to note that he had never _once_ brought up the colors he saw around them, and they knew to keep it that way. If there was any kindness in the universe, perhaps he was her orange. A shade that wasn’t as prevalent everywhere in the school, outside of the library.

And if there was less kindness, but still a kindness to be spoken of, then perhaps the girl with the pink hair--

 _Hana_ . Perhaps _Hana_ would have enough sense to keep her own mouth shut.

He most _certainly_ had not found his Red, or his Soulmate, so _of course_ there was no possible way he could know that Hana Mizuno had hair of the soft shade of a carnation. And no one needed to know his opinion on the particular things that shade of aquamarine had managed to do to his heart, either.

He would offer her as much kindness and protection as he could, even if only through directing the attention of his friends toward her. If things didn’t work out, then, oh well. It would be a loss, but one of no fault of him or his family.

And if things _did_ work out, then he would have a reasonable excuse for sticking around her. A color was a color, after all.

Besides, it wasn’t as though he would be... ‘ _terribly opposed_ ’ to her friend hanging about either, and if the others decided they enjoyed Hana’s company, well… two birds with one stone, all without tempting fate or provoking his mother’s potential wrath.

Peebs, beside him, let out a sound of dismay rather like a kitten that had slipped into a pool of water, and Josh laughed out loud and held out his hands toward Paul and Nick. Twin grumbles of snickering annoyance rang out, with Nick sighing and irritatedly complaining, “You couldn’t have even made it to level eight, Peebs? I would have won then.”

“Never underestimate how bad at video games PBG can be.” Josh said, in an attempted sagely voice, as he snagged the two five hundred yen coins that the other two Continue? boys held out to him. Paul reached over Nick’s shoulder and flicked the center of Josh’s forehead with a roll of his eyes.

Jared, sparing one last glance in feigned interest toward PBG’s Gintendo, hummed a bit to himself in annoyance as the blue-green shade finally faded away again into pale grays with the barest brushes of silvery blue. He tucked his mirror away into his bag again, silently promising himself that he would see that crystal clear shade again in little enough time.

After all, he thought with a wry smile toward his own thought process, he had already done his civic duty toward Hana Mizuno, when he explained to the group at large exactly _why_ he had stopped to chat with someone on the way to the table. He had done his part -- all that remained was to see where the others’ actions and opinions landed them with her. Who knew? Perhaps she was a color to more than just himself.

He swung his bag onto his shoulder, excusing himself with a small, pointed smile and a sly reminder that if any of them needed him, he was a text message away. He had a few last minute supplies to pick up before the first day of classes the next day, and the little calligraphy shop down in town just outside of campus closed early in the afternoon on Sundays.

(And if his casual stroll out of the cafeteria brought him close enough to the table where Hana and her roommate were sitting that his world flared briefly back into stark, stunning relief, then he had  _absolutely_ no reason to be ashamed of it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, the image use is NOT in any way meant to be detrimental to Illus Seed or their intellectual property, nor is it meant for any profit on my part. It IS entirely meant to reflect Jared's quiet inner monologue. Silly boy is lost in his own happiness.


	3. Act 1 // Orange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up to everyone, I'm flying cross country!! 8/5 is basically going to be a day of nothing but flying, and I'll likely take 8/6 to recover before doing anything else with this story. that said, I might have to take a few extra days before I post again.

* * *

**Orange**

* * *

Later that evening, once everything had been settled into place in their new dorm room, Hana and Mai lounged at their desks, sorting through everything they would need for the first day of classes the next morning. Hana had plugged in her portable radio, and she had found a nice alternative classical station, soft music to fill the room between their alternating hums of concentration. Mai had refreshed the potpourri leaves in her little burner, until the sounds and the soft smells almost seemed to be one in the same. It was an extremely satisfying, relaxing sensation.

At least, for the most part. Hana pursed her lips in confused irritation, before finally speaking up. “Hey, Mai?”

Mai gave a distracted hum of acknowledgement, without bothering to look up.

“Am I supposed to have a textbook for History 309?” she sorted through the small stack of books on her desk again, peering at her class roster and once again noting the class name that didn’t seem to be represented.

“Uhhh…” Mai let out a breath, poking through her own things for a moment before letting out another soft sound of victory, holding up a textbook with a frowning man with a powdered wig on the front. “Yeah, this one.”

Hana sighed, shaking her head -- the textbook was distinctive, and she knew it wasn’t in her pile of books. “I don't have that one. The school must have missed it.”

Mai shrugged, leaning back in her chair, “They have a bunch at the library. You can just check one out.”

“...okay, but… I don’t know how to get to the library.” Hana did her best to imbue her tone with as much patience and calmness as her father had always done when she herself had never wanted to think about consequences of things. “Can you draw me a map, or something?”

“I caaaaan.” Mai hummed, drawing out the vowel in the second word as her mouth curled into a small frown, “But I _did_ tell you I’d show you where everything you needed to worry about was, right? I could go with you.”

“Mai, you’ve already pulled off your stockings. And your kerchief. _And_ your bra.” Hana offered a wry smile, gesturing to the three aforementioned types of clothing items, which were tossed lovingly into a pile in the corner of the room that Mai had declared would be the laundry pile until one of them got a laundry basket for the room, “Which, side note, you _have_ to teach me how you did that without even hiking your shirt up. The hooks on mine always wind up tangled in the fabric of whatever shirt I’m wearing whenever I try to do something like that.”

“Talent, my dear pink haired heartthrob, talent.” Mai managed a small, smug smile, closing her eyes and splaying her fingers across her sternum and collarbones (exposed by the open flare of her unbuttoned collar) as though feigning flattered modesty, “And a lot of practice, and more than the usual amount of flexibility, I think. Not a lot of girls can go _down_ through the collar to unhook their bras, rather than _up_ from the bottom of the shirt.” She shrugged, “After that it’s just the usual getting the straps down through the sleeves.”

“Point is,” Hana cut in, redirecting the conversation back to the matter at hand -- her missing textbook, and the need to get to the library, “You’re not exactly what most would consider ‘in uniform’ anymore. Or ‘publically decent’ by some standards.” She snickered, “And unless you _want_ to put on a bra again…”

“Eugh.” Mai made a face, shaking her head, “Noooo, why would I want to do that? Especially after having taken it _off_ for the night.” She sighed, slowly sinking down in her chair until her head dangled over the back of it, her hair cascading in a river of red waves, and her butt was about an inch from falling straight off it. “Bras are so uncomfy after a full day wearing one.”

“All the more reason I could use a map.” Hana couldn’t fully tramp down the note of amusement that crept into her voice. With a sigh that carried a note of resigned irritation, Mai reluctantly swung her chair around to her desk again, pulling herself up to sit correctly and tugging a page out of her notebook. She drew a series of crude rectangles, labelling them as she went, muttering to herself under her breath as she reminded herself which buildings were next to which. At the end, she drew two stars on different points in the paper, and a detailed little chibi version of her face, winking, beside the star labeled “library”.

“There.” she nodded in satisfaction, grinning a bit as she held the page out to Hana. “Don’t get lost. Should I give you my number so I can come find you if you do?”

“Well,” Hana shrugged, a fond smile on her lips, “I would think it would be useful to have your number in any case…”

“Alright. What’s yours?” Mai tugged her phone out from her open collar and wiped it off with her shirt (Hana tried, really she did, not to curl her lip -- but without Mai’s bra, that phone had to have been held in place strictly by the virtue of Mai’s chest, and boob sweat was reportedly the _worst_ ). “I’ll text you a red rose emote so you have mine.”

Hana smiled, reciting the string of numbers that led to her cell phone, an older but still serviceable model. She looked down at her pocket when it chimed out a cheerful piano tune, signifying a new text message. “Alright, got it. I’ll be back.” She straightened her kerchief and her jacket, peering down at the map in her hands as she went to the door. The warm weight of the room key she had hooked onto a chain around her neck was reassuring in a way that she couldn’t quite explain.

Even with the map, it still took a few drawn out minutes to decipher Mai’s messy, exaggerated cursive scrawl. By the time that Hana had confirmed that all of the buildings were roughly correct, while she walked, and had found the library, the light was beginning to fade from the world. She was treated, as the last of her reds and pinks faded again, to possibly the most beautiful beginning of a sunset she had seen in the past several years, possibly the nicest she had _ever_ seen, in fact. There was something particularly beautiful about the gentle swirls of red and pink mixing with the slowly deepening gray.

Still, ducking into the library was an entirely differently pleasant experience. The scent of older paper, of cracked leather bindings and wood polish and a scent she could only define as _books_ wafted into her nose as soon as she opened the door to the large building. She glanced around once, taking note of the much larger-than-expected interior, before sighting a desk set off a bit to the side of the front door.

A differently shaded gray jacket, rather like a varsity jacket, with a discernable ‘boots’ patch on the left breast, met her gaze seconds after the recognition of a front-desk. Normal Boots.

Her nerves spiked. She briefly considered turning tail.

“Can I help you?”

Too late. She swallowed as thinly as she could, trying to both assuage her nerves and not allow them to show, before stepping over to the desk. “Uh, yeah… the school forgot to give me one of my textbooks. I was told I could get it here.”

The Normal Boots boy behind the counter hummed, adjusting the set of his glasses with one hand and nodding thoughtfully, his eyes closing for a moment. “Which one is it?”

Hana’s breath caught in her throat before she could answer. She had stepped to a reasonable speaking distance from the desk while his eyes were closed, and almost immediately she noticed the change. The wood of the desk, while still a faded gray color at its base, had light playing off of the polished wood grain. _Orange_ light.

It took her a second longer than it should have to get her throat to work again, and her answer came out a bit squeaky. “T-The History 309 textbook.”

He opened his eyes again, and Hana was relieved that she wasn’t the only one caught off guard by a sudden influx of color in her world. His eyes widened minutely (she wondered, briefly, if she would have noticed if she hadn’t already been hoping for it. Mai had colors from her, Jared had colors from her… was it safe to assume that colors were a mutual experience?).

She couldn’t help the small, hopeful smile that formed on her face.

“...” he took a breath, visibly composing himself, before offering a warm smile in return. “Ah… if you don’t mind, can I ask which color you’re seeing?”

Candid, to the point, but polite. She promptly decided she liked his attitude. “Orange, I think. I see it mostly in the reflections of the wood.”

He nodded in approval. “Cool. I see blue, in case you wanted to know. It’s cool to finally know what color the standard uniform blazer is.”

She blinked, tilting her head, “People can see different colors?”

“Oh, yeah.” the boy stepped around the desk, gesturing for her to follow him as he spoke, his grin welcoming and patient. “Almost everyone does. Only Reds and Rainbows match up.”

“Reds and… Rainbows?” She was sure her embarrassed cluelessness of the entire subject was showing. Even with the short pause and arched eyebrow he cast toward her, his smile still stayed warm and patient. “Sorry, I-I haven’t grown up with most of the legends, I guess. I didn’t even know the colors were supposed to be a big deal until today.”

“It’s fine.” he laughed, a lighthearted sound, “It’s mostly just… slang, I guess. It picked up a while back, since people who see red around a certain person are paired off, but most other colors don’t match up. And of course, the whole ‘true soulmate’ thing, those are defined pairs too, and they see all the colors together.”

“So… Reds, and Rainbows.” Hana nodded a bit in understanding. “Cool.”

“Yep. Oh, here we are.” He gestured to the shelves they had stopped in front of, before leaning down to pull out a slightly tattered version of the same textbook Mai had held up. There was a rather pretty orange-amber stone in the pin of the cover man’s cravat, nestled snugly against his Adam’s Apple, and Hana couldn’t quite stop the radiant smile that formed on her face as she took the book.

“You’re…. Satch, right?” she started, softly, glancing up at him. “Mai, my roommate, pointed you and your friends out to me at lunch today. I hope that isn’t weird.”

“I’d hope not.” Satch grinned back, “Since Jared did pretty much the same with you, to us. Hana, right?”

“Mhm. Hana Mizuno.”

“Satchell Drakes.” He held out his hand to her, and she felt a small giddy thrill as she reached forward to take it. For the barest of seconds while the contact lasted, the orange light that filled the library seemed to intensify, vibrantly filling the world around her.

(Maybe that was why Mai was so eagerly tactile. Hana hadn’t been paying enough attention before.)

“So, Hana,” his grin made tiny dimples form, and Hana couldn’t help but smile back again. “Do you have any books that really speak to you?”

Her smile fell a bit, and she hummed, thinking for a moment. But nothing came to mind. “...I’m not sure? I mean… There’s this one book I read pretty much every other day for most of last year, but...? _The Candlelight Faerie_ isn’t really something that _speaks_ , so much as it’s… warm. And familiar. And comforting.”

“Like a hearthfire. Something you don’t have to think twice about hanging around.” Satch’s grin, somehow, only grew. “Like _orange_.”

She brought the history book close to herself, hugging it to her chest, and felt her cheeks heating up as she smiled. She was incredibly glad that he couldn’t see reds around her.

“I just finished a pretty good book,” he spoke again, a broad smile on his face, as though he didn’t need to see reds to be pleased by how the conversation was going, and turned to start walking again. Hana fell into step beside him without thinking twice about it. “Right up your alley, I’d think, if you don’t mind me suggesting things.”

They turned a corner, Hana clearing the aisle before he did, and she let out a startled squeak as a triangular blur of white just barely missed hitting her nose. The three boys at the table where she guessed it had arced from snickered darkly amongst themselves, one of them offering a fist for a second to bump.

Satch, however, didn’t seem quite as amused. He knelt down to scoop up the paper football, taking a moment to balance it on one finger as though weighing it.

“Your aim would be better if you cut the corners before you folded it,” he said, tone light but to the point, and the three boys immediately stopped snickering. “Careful though, you almost hit her, and that wouldn’t have been nice at all.”

The tallest one across the table, who looked likely to have flicked it, looked down at his hands with a grimace, “Our bad.”

Satch’s smile returned, and he nonchalantly unfolded the little paper football with deft fingers, pulling out the shiny 100 yen coin inside before folding it back together again. “And maybe use a lighter coin next time. Weight distribution messes with trajectory.”

He held out the coin toward Hana without breaking eye contact with the three boys, and tossed the re-folded paper football back to the one closest to them. Hana timidly scooped the coin out of his hand, _avoiding_ eye contact with everything she had. Without a further word, he turned to continue heading toward the front desk.

Hana, however, looked down at the coin in her hands. She swallowed, and slowly brought her eyes up, stepping forward.

_Just breathe, one foot in front of the other, don’t trip, don’t chicken out -- I can’t take their money, no matter the fact that they nearly hit me in the face._

She gently placed the coin back on the corner of the table, taking her hand back and turning in the same movement.

“Hey.”

She froze, instinctively. The tall one had spoken up again.

“Uh… we really, y’know, are sorry.” He sounded… unexpectedly sheepish. “We _were_ kind of aiming to hit whoever was coming around the corner, and it really _wasn’t_ nice.”

“Just…” her voice shook, and she could feel her shoulders trembling, and she swallowed heavily, but she had to be brave about this. She had to face her demons sometime. Her shoulders inched upward toward her ears, and she didn’t turn around. “Please don’t do it again.”

She hurried to follow after Satch, the book clenched close to her chest, and found him back at the desk again.

“You alright?” he asked, concern etched on his features. She placed the book on the counter, taking careful pains to keep her hands from shaking in front of him. He frowned, but took the book and scanned it out to her, before tugging a second book out from under the desk and very pointedly scanning it out to her as well, holding out both books to her. She peered down briefly at the cover of the second book.

A man in plain clothing, embracing a woman who looked to be in fancy dress. _The Princess Betrothed._

“It’s long,” he murmured, offering one more rueful smile, “But it’s one of my favorites. I know things can be tough, transferring to a new school. But if you ever need… y’know, an escape? It’ll transport you hundreds of miles away within a few words.”

Hana ducked her head, feeling the burn of tears starting at her eyes, even as her mouth curled into a shaky smile, “Thank you, Satch. For more than just the books.”

“Not a problem. Let me know what you think, alright?” he gestured with his chin toward the second book.

“I will.” she nodded, holding both close to herself and slipping back out of the library again.

Her phone chimed as she got to the last step, and she finally let her shaking knees give out on her, settling down to catch her breath and calm her heart. Anxiety bubbled under her skin, a fight-flight-freeze response resolutely stuck on the ‘freeze’ option.

 

> ???? (unread):  **  
> **???? (unread): Hana? It’s been almost half an hour. Did you get held up?
> 
> _Message read report sent._

She forced herself to breathe through in her nose and out through her mouth as her hands went through the motions of saving the sender as a new contact, then pulled up the chat window again.

 

> >> I just finished up in the library. I’ll be back soon.
> 
> _Mai OwO_ : Awesome. I snagged hot cocoa from the dorm kitchen for us. Hurry back while it’s still hot, okay?  
>  _Mai OwO_ : btw I have you saved as “Hana Banana” (~o3o)~
> 
> >> Dweeb. 8(　 **＾** ∇ **＾** )
> 
> >> Don't eat all the marshmallows!! 8(；¬＿¬)
> 
> _Mai_ _OwO_ : is the 8 supposed to be your bow???  
>  _Mai OwO_ : that's so cute omg. （＊〇□〇）……！

  
She smiled, slipping her phone back into her pocket and resolutely telling her legs to hold her up, pulling herself up to stand again and making her way back through the growing darkness to Poppy Hall. Even if the world faded into one drab, endless gray, she already had faith in the fact that there would be a glimmering, exuberant, red-haired light at the end of the tunnel.

Whether or not there was hot cocoa at the end with her seemed to be debatable, though!

* * *

> >> to;GroupMsgs;NormalBoots
> 
> Satchbag: @Jared, you may have been onto something.  
>  ProJared: Oh? Do tell. I love being told I’m right.  
>  Satchbag: Hana IS a cute  
>  JonTron: A cute what?  
>  Satchbag: A cute. Cute, as in a noun.  
>  ContinuePaul: Cute isn't a noun though.  
>  Satchbag: She is the actual definition of cute as a noun.  
>  ProJared: Right??? I told you I always have a sense about these things.  
>  Satchbag: You just want to claim credit for pointing her out to us.  
>  ProJared: Hey, no, I had a good feeling about @Shane too.  
>  DidUKno: could this conversation perhaps continue tomorrow at lunch?? some of us actually value getting to bed early before classes.  
>  ProJared: Bah on you. Go to bed then. @Satch, you on your way back?  
>  Satchbag: Locking up the library now.

* * *

> >>to;GroupMsgs;SoccerTeam
> 
>   
>  SpaceHamster: Wanna start early this year, guys?  
>  PBG: Sure. Practice scrimmage after classes?  
>  DeanLZB: I’m game  
>  McJones: nothing too hardcore, alright? Most of my goalie stuff is still packed up.  
>  PBG: Fair enough. Just something to get us used to being around each other again after vacation.  
>  PBG: See you all tomorrow!  
>  SpaceHamster: Night!  
>  DeanLZB: Night  
>  McJones: night.


End file.
